A New Begining
by Libquedation
Summary: Years into the future, Legolas has lost everyone he loved. He does not know how to move on. Then Fate intervenes and things are set into motion, things he never once believed in.


Everyone he knew was gone. They had died after living long, fulfilled lives. He was alone in the world, not even a fellow elf could understand his pain.

Legolas was alone.

Beautiful as ever, yet hundreds of years later, he stood in the damp forest, aiming his bow at a target across the woods. He pulled the string back, feeling it tense beneath his fingers, and with a breath of air, he released it, the string snapping back, the soft sound of the arrow striking wood reaching his pointed ears.

But it didn't give him the satisfaction it once did.

Wise beyond his years, Legolas knew that it was foolhardy to hang onto his past the way he was; it had turned many an elf insane.

But he missed it.

He missed them all.

He missed the way that Aragorn would ride into an impossible battle, yet somehow come out on top with hardly a scratch.

He missed the way Gandalf would march alongside with them, powerful as anything, the magic in him radiating into the air, lightening the mood whenever all hope was lost.

He missed the Hobbits, Merry, Pippin, Sam, and Frodo, and how their spirits were so pure, so perfect, how they always managed to put a smile on their faces, even in the gravest of times.

He missed Gimli almost more than the others. They had formed a special bond of friendship, forged tight as chain mail. He missed how they would count the enemies they slayed, keeping friendly competition alive even when the risk of death teetered on the edge.

Legolas was alone, and he hated it as much as an elf can hate.

Striding across the forest floor to the target, Legolas stopped suddenly as a tinkling sound reached his ears. He paused in all his movements, his eyes searching the undergrowth. He sensed a presence nearby, but even his dark brown eyes could not spot anything.

"I'm over here." Called a voice, startling him. His knees automatically bent, his fingers tightening around his bow.

"Relax. I'm not looking for a fight. Just something to do." The voice came again, distinctly female and very alluring.

"Show yourself." He called, not afraid. Just tentative.

"Only if you can find me." Her voice said once more, more of the tinkling laughter following, sounding as gorgeous as a waterfall cascading over smooth rocks to his elven ears.

Carefully, Legolas turned his gaze to the far reaching trees above him, their leaves filtering the sun into a soothing green light. Scanning, he peered until the birds stopped singing.

"I'm growing bored." The voice came again, and this time, Legolas knew where the woman was.

"If I strike the tree that you are in with a single shot, will you come out?"

"Yes."

Steadying his bow, Legolas swiftly raised it up, releasing the arrow. It lodged itself a good inch into the soft bark of the tree.

"You found me!" She said, sounding almost shocked that he had indeed discovered her whereabouts.

"Now show yourself." Legolas was more relaxed now, knowing that if this was someone that had wanted to kill him, she would have a long time ago.

Killers often were not patient people.

With a few rustling leaves and some more that floated down to the ground, a figure jumped down from above, landing lightly on the forest floor.

She stood about his height, perhaps a little shorter. Her hair was black and it flowed down her back. Her eyes were as blue as the sky after a fresh snow, and her nondescript elven clothes suggested that she was not of royalty, and that she had just returned from some travels.

"Who are you?"

"My name is Marshae."

"Where do you hail from?"

"Beyond the mountains. I am traveling in search of other elves."

"There are more?"

"No. I have just happened to live in the mountains for as long as I have had the ability to recall memories. Who are you?"

"I am Legolas."

With their first exchange of words, the two became fast friends. Legolas was happy, any elf could see the change in him. He smiled again, once more making soft wisecracks and bursting into song whenever the need arose.

Marshae was a stranger to all. No one had even heard of elves living in the mountains, but she assured them that she knew of no other elves in the mountains, and that as a young elf had grown up within the same family throughout the course of the years until she was old enough to care for herself.

Legolas found himself drawn to the new elf, her past a mystery to him.

One day, he discovered that he valued her life more than his, and that frightened him. He had never loved someone, and his love for Marshae was more than he had loved anything, even his friends from a life that seemed as if it happened such a long time before.

He was always warned against loving. It would just hurt him in the end, rip his heart out when every love was gone, vanished like the dandelion seeds in the wind.

But Argenta was an elf. She may seem like an outsider, but elven blood flowed in her veins, he knew it. He could feel it.

She had told him all about her life. Legolas entertained her with stories as well. Marshae became the one who kept him strong when thoughts of his passed on friends threatened to bring him down.

She was that one.

Soon enough, Legolas could see it in her eyes as well. The feeling of need she felt towards him, the love. They still had not spoken the words, but they both knew it.

He was elated. He felt alive again. Birds grew silent as he sung once more. Marshae loved to listen to him sing, and sometimes she would join in. She quickly learned the songs of the elves, and her mind was fast enough to create her own songs that echoed in Legolas's head for hours after.

She became his everything.

When elves love, they love for life.

Legolas had never been open or closed to loving before; he just didn't know that it came so strongly.

"Marshae," the elf turned around, her hair swishing softly, moving as if it was being blown by the wind, even though there was no wind.

"Yes?"

"Words are ready to pour out of me. I have much to say, but I don't know how to phrase it."

"Let me start." Marshae said, sighing. Legolas raised an eyebrow, confused at her expression of defeat and remorse. It sang through him like a melancholy melody.

"I haven't told you everything about me during the War for Freedom. Actually, I never told you anything about it."

"Why?" Legolas asked, put Marshae raised her hand, signaling him to wait.

"I never told you because I was a Rider. I rode Nazgûl."

A stake of fear and pain drove itself straight into Legolas, burying itself in the recesses of what used to be his heart. Then anger breached.

"You are a murderer." Came from his lips, seething with anger. He couldn't even yell; his words were a hiss.

"It was not my fault!"

"How!" Legolas said, now furious.

How could he have been so nearsighted? How could he have not noticed anything?

"I was under his control. He placed a spell on me, I do not know how, but he managed to break past my defenses and render me under his total and absolute control. He figured that having an elf ride his precious animals into battle would make him have a better chance of defeat for the other side. Plus it gave him a huge fighting advantage because of the skills I had with long-distance weapons."

Legolas stood in an instant and paced the distance of the room over to the window, letting a whistle break the silence. A few tense moments later, a galloping white horse came into view, and Legolas strode towards the open door. Marshae stood in a flash and looked to the window, to see Legolas mount the horse.

"Go, run in any direction. Just take me away from here for now." Legolas whispered to the horse, which turned underneath him and galloped away.

Marshae let her knees buckle, her body falling onto the stone floor. She looked up, tears falling from her eyes, hitting the ground one after another.

She knew that she had to have told him, she couldn't hide it forever. It had been years since the War, and yet she knew that his wounds from it ran so deep that this would have happened.

Legolas was furious and upset. He barely felt the branches that scratched at him as the horse ventured deeper into the forest; all he knew was pain in the heart.

He knew this would happen. It had been too good to be true. And now everything he had known was upsidedown.

The woman he loved had fought against him in the War. Had killed many of his people in the War.

How could he love her?

_Because she is Marshae, a different person than the one that was fighting against you. She had no control over her own actions; she was under a spell. She is now someone who can be and will be loved, even if not by you. _

Legolas turned back the horse and raced back in the direction of the city.

Marshae was in the process of putting her things in her rucksack and saddlebags; she knew that she was no longer welcome in Legolas's place, not with the horror she committed all those years before.

She knew that it had cut him too deeply, opened too many healing scars.

And she felt it to her core.

Picking up her bags, she walked over to the balcony, throwing them over, before lightly jumping off herself, landing in the grass with no more than a soft thud. She let out a piercing whistle, and the familiar pounding of hooves on the ground reached her ears.

Her own horse came up before her, and she secured the saddle and bags on his back, hooking her foot in the stirrup and pulling her body up comfortably.

"Marshae!" Her body tensed, every sense on alert as Legolas's voice reached her ears. Marshae whirled around, looking behind her across the grassy plain, to see none other than Legolas racing towards her.

"Don't go." He cried in their language, and she waited patiently, his horse drawing up beside hers. "Don't leave."

"I have to. I am no longer wanted here by you. I could see it in your eyes, feel it down to my very core, echoing along my body as if you had screamed it in my face."

"Marshae." Legolas gently reached over and cupped her cheeks with his hands, forcing her blue eyes to meet his brown ones. "That happened a very long time ago. It is in the past. I love you for the breathtaking elven woman you are right now. To part with you would be equivalent to tearing my beating heart from my aching chest."

"My past is tarnished, you cannot forgive it."

"I can forget it."

"But how can you be sure?"

By this time, the couple were softly murmuring to each other, their faces close, with Marshae's face contorted into one of pain.

"I love you. That is all the proof I need." Legolas whispered back, utterly sincere.

"You are the wind that whispers in my ears, the sun of the day, the one I love." Marshae said back before Legolas wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a tight kiss, their bodies interlocked as best as they could be over the span of two horses.

Peace at last.

Peace within Legolas and Marshae.

She did not have a waging war in herself.

And he knew that even though he missed his past life something terrible, he had the strength to move on and have another life, another with love.


End file.
